Heritage Snapshot: Part 130

Catherine Lindsay was born in Wisconsin on Sept. 11, 1842, in a little log house not far from the present-day site of the state’s capital in Madison. She was the oldest of eight children; four of whom did not live. She was a precocious child with an independent spirit and a noble ancestry. Her father was a descendant of Lord Lindsay who served during the reign of England’s Queen Mary, and her grandmother on her mother’s side was none other than Jeanette Livingstone, cousin of David Livingston, the great African explorer and missionary. While attending school in a little log school house as a slender, frail child, her desk was a split log, flat side up. She walked four miles to school through a forest that was home to wild animals, including panthers. Night after night, the mother of that early pioneer home read to her children books and literature which eventually molded her ambitious daughter’s reading. Kate read voraciously. She was insatiably hungry for knowledge. After spending all of her spare time studying, she became well versed in literature, classical languages, science, and history. As she read and thought, her very soul would almost burst at times with rebellion at the restrictions which kept women tied down to household duties and permitted them no part in a very interesting and exciting world. A biography on Florence Nightingale significantly impacted young Kate’s life. It became a deciding factor in launching her remarkable career. Kate’s religious nature led her to seek every opportunity to understand her Bible more fully. Being an avid reader, after faithful study of the Bible, she became a staunch member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in spite of her family’s protests. Later her entire family accepted the message, but not until after a long, fierce conflict, especially with her mother. Although she seemed cold and independent on the outside, those who knew her best perceived in her a lovable and deeply emotional nature. Even as a child, Kate felt that she was destined to do a special work, and that no one, even in her family, understood her ambitions or her heart longings. In the meantime, at age 18, Kate fell deeply in love with a young school teacher. She threw her whole heart and life into preparation for marriage and forgot for a time her ambition to become a nurse. She had found in her lover a sympathetic and understanding companion. But Mr. Porter died from pneumonia while at an army training camp in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the Civil War. Kate was devastated. In 1867, following several years of mourning and healing, Kate again pursued her goal to become a nurse at the newly opened Western Health Reform Institute in Battle Creek, Michigan. With only two physicians, two bath attendants, and one untrained nurse on staff, the lack of adequate professional help impacted the growth of the Institute. During this time Kate noted that the Institute had no qualified nurses and no program for the education of nurses. She left Battle Creek to attend a two-year nurses’ training program in Florence Heights, New Jersey. Until this time Kate had had only eight years of formal education. The New Jersey institution awakened within her passionate soul a deeper desire to know more about sickness and disease, so that she might minister more intelligently to those in need. Kate Lindsay returned to the Health Reform Institute in the fall of 1869 as a graduate nurse. As the need for more physicians became more evident daily, Kate decided to do something about it. She would now study medicine. By studying on her own Kate already had attained an education that was superior to that of many students seeking college admission today. In 1870, at age 28, she became one of only ten women among 1,300 young men at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, a strange sight indeed to male eyes that had never seen skirts in their halls of learning. The next year, and at a time when women physicians were not fully accepted, she enrolled as a freshman at the University’s College of Medicine and Surgery. Hers was the first class to admit women. Catherine Lindsay, graduated in 1875 at age 33, with the highest rating of any student in her class. The next year, when John Harvey Kellogg, MD, took over the Health Reform Institute, Kate Lindsay, MD, became a staff physician and directed its department of obstetrics and pediatrics for $10 a week. One year later, in 1877, the Health Reform Institute became the Battle Creek Sanitarium. In the meantime, Dr. Lindsay undertook postgraduate education at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where she observed Bellevue’s new School of Nursing. Then, through her untiring and persistent efforts, in 1883 Dr. Lindsay helped establish the Sanitarium Medical Missionary and Training School in Battle Creek. The six-month course soon grew to two and three years and eventually to five. Dr. Lindsay insisted that nursing education be a structured curriculum and not on-the-job training. But it would compliment organized class instruction with bedside experience. It was one of the first schools of nursing in America and the first founded by Seventh-day Adventists. Textbooks were Dr. Lindsay’s compiled notes. They were comprehensive, yet thoroughly condensed. She was a woman of sterling integrity. She loved God and truth. She gave herself devotedly and wholeheartedly to what she considered the duty assigned to her by the Master she served. Her students learned that in addition to technical knowledge, they must have a heart which feels the sufferings of the human family. And they must have an undying desire to do all in their power to alleviate such suffering. Dr. Lindsay’s career exemplified her teachings. So that she could be readily available to her patients during the night, especially her maternity patients, she slept in a little room next to her office at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Dr. Kate herself would often stay up all night to assist in the care of a critically ill patient whose life hung in the balance. She taught that personal comfort must be sacrificed when real emergencies arise in the ministry of healing.